Dear all
I am coming to the end of a notebook. I use up a Moleskine Cahier extra large notebook roughly every six weeks. This is where I write what’s going on in my head daily (mostly). I have no idea how people who don’t write in notebooks manage their thoughts! I use it as a journal, for morning pages, and take reading notes here too when I am not in front of a computer. I also make notes on things I want to write, sometimes beginning the writing before moving onto a screen. I carry it up to bed with me, downstairs in the morning and out to my summerhouse garden office. I fold the edge of each page to make a margin and when things to do come up, I make a note here or asterisk if I want to remember something later.
I always leave a page at the front for an index, but I haven’t numbered my pages for a while now. I heard a talk by Douglas Cowie, who wrote the excellent Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago, a novel about Simone de Beauvoir’s relationship with Nelson Algren, and he begins a new notebook for every novel or writing project. He numbers every single note while researching, and then when he is ready to write, he plans each chapter with a list of these numbers. I tried numbering index cards, reading notes, projects and other short pieces of writing, but my brain doesn't remember numbers very well, so I try to use consistent descriptions in document titles as well as keywords.
Six weeks seems like a good amount of time to contain in a notebook. Not too much that it feels overwhelming to review and enough that it holds shifts and changes in ideas and thoughts. I have kept all of my notebooks since 2015, but before that, I threw out a builder’s bag of them. Before the purge, I pulled out pages I thought I might want to keep and typed up others. But the newly discovered researcher in me now at times wishes I’d kept them all.
I am running out of space again and not sure what to do with my new stash. But I know now that what I see in the words today, might not be what I see in ten or twenty years time. And yet, there are common themes that repeat for page after page, so maybe I only need a sample. Either way, these notebooks are a rich source of material that I don’t make enough use of. So today, I tried something I’ve been meaning to do for a while - writing haiku from the words and ideas in my notebook.
Notebook Haiku
Just be. Release thoughts. Detach and observe yourself in third person. There, there.
Circle of elders menopause myth, folk, culture midlife inspiration.
Sun-bleached driftwood a branch, say. White bones, smooth edges ageing essence glows.
Driftwood washed ashore abandoned, wedged near dunes marram grass shadows.
Writing Prompt
Take any text that you’ve already written - an unfinished story, a few pages from your journal, a wordy poem that isn’t quite right - and write a haiku using the words or ideas that are already there.
As a reminder, a haiku is a poem made up of three short lines. The syllable count is 5-7-5, but don’t worry too much about that. The language is simple but the effect often moving and poignant.
You could also use your previous writing for found poetry where you make a poem out of the words that are already there, either by blacking out the other words, or copying them, cutting up and rearranging.
Further reading
Cameron, Julia (2016) The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, TarcherPerigree.
Until next time…
Mel
P.S. I am looking at my bookings and numbers for the September start of The Writer’s Notebook, so if you are planning to join, please book now or email me (you can reply to this email) to let me know. Thank you!